


Two Lumens for a Tamar

by Taffia



Category: Talislanta
Genre: Aaman, Ariane - Freeform, Cymril, F/M, Gao Din, Jhangara, Sun-Ra-San, Talislanta - Freeform, Wrath of Aa, Zandir
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:51:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taffia/pseuds/Taffia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The city of Cymril holds many wonders from the lowliest spell to the might of the Lyceum Arcanum. But even the most clever of wizards could not be prepared for the request of the mysterious Ariane who appears in the midst of the annual Magical Fair. Meanwhile, far to the south, pirates ride the seas, and a long-forgotten legend becomes the only thing that matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_ “ Be vigilant, for not even Aa will always warn you of a knife in the dark.” _

_ \--The Omnival _

  
The fog bank was not entirely unexpected. Aamarin had noticed the change in the air through the course of the day, the coolness bringing on a chill damp. It nevertheless put him all so slightly on edge. His ship was too close to Gao pirate territory, and he had precious cargo down below that demanded deliverance to the missions in Jhangara. He motioned to the helmsman to maintain course as he stepped below to his cabin to consult the updated charts once more. Aaseth, his first mate and fellow-in-arms, was already there. His smooth fingers traced invisible lines over underlying currents as his brow maintained an uncharacteristic furrow.   
  
He looked up as his captain approached.   
  
“We can draw sail and coast along for a time…to here.” He pointed just beyond a small patch of islands inked onto the bleached parchment. “The fog will help us significantly in this regard. We’ll be almost completely undetectable for as long as the fog holds.”   
  
Aamarin nodded shallowly. “It’s the ‘almost’ that worries me. The Gao are not those likely to forget a slight, and we left several of their women widows.”   
  
A chuckle escaped the first mate like a wave gradually building into shore.   
  
“Captain, this vessel is manned by twenty of Arat’s finest. Every sailor can fight for his own, and you and I can handle the rest. We have naught to fear from the Gao.” His green eyes returned to the map spread between them. “Besides, we’ll hit the coastline by morning, and it will be only friendly waters from there.”   
  
“I shall put faith in your judgment,” Aamarin replied after a moment of thought, his white-clad arms crossed before him. “May the All-Seeing watch over us.”   
  
“Aa is Omniscient,” Aaseth murmured reflexively.   
  
“Aa is Omniscient,” Aamarin repeated as he returned to the deck, the oath sounding hollow to his ears this evening. He thought it was the air, the closeness of the fog, the stillness of the sea beneath the hull. Regardless, the uncomfortable feeling had made itself known, and the captain found himself even more on edge.   
  
Turning to face the helmsman to notify him in the change in course, Aamarin leapt back in surprise. The man’s hands were bound with coarse rope to the spokes of the wheel while his white tunic and trousers were soaked and dripping with his own blood. Whispering a quick prayer, Aamarin drew forth the black iron of his long sword and pressed himself against the aft castle.   
  
He closed his eyes for only a moment, his lips moving in a hushed plea for Aa’s guiding sight. There was an intruder on board, and he would be routed out and punished accordingly. One murder was already evident. A second was possible, and may the All-Knowing help before there was even the chance of a third.   
  
Aamarin waited for no more than a few breaths after his prayer was finished. His breathing even, his heart calm, he reached out with his senses to try to find the intruder. Even having his eyes open was of little use. Either Aa was in no mood to assist, or matters were of a much different sort.   
  
“Where is the infidel?” the captain whispered to himself as he slid along the wall, his eyes darting everywhere in the misty gloom. “Where is the infidel?”   
  
The only response was the wind in the sails and the waves lapping against the bleached wood of the hull. The deck was eerily devoid of hands minus those of the helmsman still guiding the ship to harbor even in death, which, Aamarin realized, only made the matter worse to think about.   
  
A soft thud came from just overhead, and Aamarin spun about in alarm. His sword at the ready, his hands gripping the ivory hilt so tightly that the holy symbol of Aa looked like its only eye would pop, he stealthily climbed the steep steps to the aft castle deck. As the wooden planks reached his line of vision, he first caught sight of a rumpled white form and the feared trickle of crimson that slowly spread from a slashed and broken neck. There was still no sign of the most unwelcome guest.   
  
“Aa, in your omniscience, reveal him!” Aamarin hissed to himself. “Reveal him!”   
  
There was a slight rustle of cloth and a melodious giggle from up atop the aft mast, but Aamarin could not see through the gloom to discern exactly what was there.   
  
“It seems that the All-Seeing is playing a bit coy this evening,” a voice called down lightly, and the disconcerted captain could hear the smile that was mocking him. A moment later, a figure dropped from above. Completely garbed and cloaked in white linen and leather, Aamarin would swear to the Hierophant himself that it was none other than a fellow Aamanian. The wind gave away a bit of a secret, though, and he caught sight of a lustrous tail of black hair blowing out from behind the bleached mantle.   
  
“Firstly,” the figure pointed out, the voice muffled by cloth and fog, “you’ve been looking for an infidel.” A flick of the wrist revealed an insignia dangling from a metal chain: a black iron Eye of Aa wreathed by spikes painted with white enamel. “Secondly…” a curved silver dagger adorned with intricate carvings and onyx stones slipped easily from a sheath at the figure’s belted waist.   
  
Faster than Aamarin was prepared to react but not fast enough to be his undoing, the intruder whirled at him with the blade in hand. The move was very much like that from a Zandir dueling dance but maintained a certain structure that betrayed Aamanian training. A feint and a side-step and the dagger slashed clean through the captain’s linen sleeve as he swung out with his sword. There was a gasp as iron grazed flesh, and Aamarin smiled grimly at the small trail of red blood on his blade. He was certainly fighting no ghost, and that thought alone made whatever fear he had maintained to this point vanish. Turning about swiftly, he brought his long sword up to bear as he locked eyes with his opponent. Olive green stared into emerald as neither made a move against the other.   
  
A rumble of steps could be heard from below as an alarm was raised. Someone else had spotted the dead helmsman, and it wasn’t long before the deck swarmed with Aamanian sailors. Aamarin spotted Aaseth out of the corner of his vision, and was grateful to know that the first mate had also spotted the intruder. Half a dozen men came storming up to the deck of the aft castle, and the cloaked figured stood resigned and still, eyes smiling, as the sailors closed in.   
  
“Secondly,” the voice repeated as one of the sailors reached up to snatch at the hood. The intruder’s empty hand flashed up to block the unwanted action only to complete it, revealing a woman’s smiling face crowned with a full head of ebony hair pulled up and fastened with a decorative silver cuff. “This is also why Aa didn’t help you. You were looking for a male infidel. My apologies, Captain Aamarin, but your sin has been realized. I have been chosen to settle the score.”   
  
She continued to smile at him. Smile! The captain glowered with such scorn that he hoped it would be enough to leave her completely daunted. However, he received no such satisfaction as there was no change in the merriment of her mocha lips, the dimples in her smooth cinnabar skin. So confident was she that Aamarin quickly convinced himself that she must be mad. Was a Zandir parading about as an Aamanian, perhaps? It was a strange concept, but not impossible as the two peoples looked almost identical in some ways. Had it been a pilgrimage gone terribly awry? At this moment, there was no way to tell, but he would certainly give it more attention later.   
  
“Detain her,” he ordered as he put away his sword. The two closest sailors immediately grabbed the woman and began to march her down the steps. “See that her cell is well warded. Aa only knows what she’s truly capable of.”   
  
“The All-Encompassing will see to my freedom—you can be sure of that,” the woman called back.   
  
“You have done wrong in His Sight, and there will be recompense.” Her tone did little to settle the captain’s nerves. What she said was madness, but he felt the weight behind her words, and he found himself questioning if it were possible that there was some sin he had committed that he was unaware of. Even as the woman was shoved down the forecastle steps into the darkness of the brig, Aamarin mulled over the past few weeks since they’d left port in Arat. Since then, he’d only done Aa’s will! There was no sin…but the All-Seeing had kept her hidden from him, gender and faith discrepancies aside. What was going on?   
  
A few minutes later, after Aamarin and Aaseth had returned the ship to some semblance of order, one of the sailors that had taken the woman to the brig returned with something from her personal effects in his hands. Nodding a short salute, he handed the item to Aamarin with a few clipped words that it was in his interests to take a look at it. The skin of his brow raising where an eyebrow should have been, he looked down to see the dagger that had been used to attack him, sheathed and gleaming in the muted moonlight. The fog was clearing, and Aamarin was better able to get a look at the weapon even though doing so confused him more as much as it clarified.   
  
“Apparently,” he said, turning to Aaseth, “she’s a witch hunter of some merit.” He hefted the weapon to better judge its weight. “Save for pointing me out directly, I’d say she’d had us confused with the local pirates.”   
  
Aaseth nodded his agreement before looking questioningly at the sailor still standing with them.   
  
“Did you get her name?” he asked simply, the shine of his bald scalp competing with the silver curves of the dagger held between them all.   
  
The sailor nodded once. “She calls herself White Aana. She also carried this.” He dropped yet another trinket into the captain’s hand. It was a simple thing: a small pendant of sea-shaped mother of pearl etched with a strange sort of insignia. Considering it nothing more than a bauble acquired from some coastal town, Aamarin pocketed the pendant and slipped the sheathed dagger into his belt.   
  
“We make weigh!” he shouted so that all on deck might hear. “Draw sail and follow the current closer into shore. We make Jhangara within the week!” Turning on his heel, he made his way back to his cabin.   
  
“And what of this…White Aana?” Aaseth questioned him while following a pace behind. “We must always beware the infidel, but a traitor from within is a much greater threat. You know as well as I that those cells will only hold wizards and heathens. If she somehow still holds Aa’s favor—“   
  
Aamarin held up a hand, and did not turn when he replied. “Aa favors only the upright and righteous. This woman has fallen into bad company, and it has addled her thoughts and ways. She is confused and must be…corrected. Awaken Aadur at the fourth bell, and have him see to her.”   
  
“Of course, sir,” Aaseth responded with a curt nod and stopped to close the door for his captain while remaining on deck himself. “For it is the will of Aa that all those born of ignorance be brought into His Grace.”   
  
Aamarin allowed a small half smile before the door closed.   
  
“Aa is Omniscient,” he said fervently.   
  
Aaseth nodded and shut the cabin door, turning to make sure that the crew was working with all haste. There was still a long way to go before they’d feel proper ground beneath their boots again.   
  
“Aa is Omniscient….”


	2. Gan

_“ Magicians always were the strange sort. Some days, they’ll be willing to help you out in a pinch. Other days, they leave you standing on their doorstep with your own personal rain cloud to soak you to the skin.”_

_ \--Kasmiran Trader _

  
The City of Cymril was uncommonly hot, even for the third of Phandir. The twin suns were glaring off the green crystal buildings with such a vengeance that looking down at the ground was necessary lest one wished to become blind. The beautiful, symmetrical constructions of domes and towers and pillars didn't seem to mind the added affect or tremendous heat in the slightest. They reflected the light brilliantly, collecting it within themselves until there was simply so much that they couldn’t take anymore. And, with a flash, they would send the sunlight radiating in all directions. Sparkles and beams danced upon every surface from the paved ground to the underside of the smallest leaf, and if the crystal structures were sentient, they would have been proud of their work.  
  
The people, however, were another story entirely.  
  
Handkerchiefs were a common sight as sweat was dabbed from brows, necks and noses. Any person of any race that could toyed with the powers of air and water to try to cool down the masses...some for a price, others for nothing. One particular gent was advertising Palovio’s Miraculous Pavilion, which claimed to be able to keep the sun off, the shade in, and also have an endless supply of drinkable water. By chance it was only a mishap that it came complete with its own private thunderstorm. Customers left drenched to the very bone, but their relief would only last a few minutes before the suns would dry them up once more attempt to cook them.  
  
Gan Darune was accustomed to such things from his upbringing in barren Sindar. The Mesas were always in the direct sun, and the Sindarans had long ago made the proper arrangements to settle a truce with the burning spheres. However, Gan’s companion wasn't so fortunate. Her unbleached white cowl was pulled far over the head reminiscent of snowflake agate, black skin and white hair that could only belong to an Ariane. Despite her attempts to cover herself and hide from the fiery sun, the amethyst tamar imbedded just above the bridge of her nose sparkled brightly within a void of darkness.  
  
It was a curious thing. Now, Gan had to admit that an Ariane this far south was curious, too, but he'd never heard of one that hadn't crafted their own tamar. His companion had actually been born with hers, a small octagonal gem of purest violet that, she said, behaved more like a third eye than what it should. She had nothing but images to contribute to the great Obelisk in the maze city of Altan where others like her had multitudes of stories...stories that her mind was constantly flooded with when it really shouldn't be. Between the two of them, Gan the Sindra and the Ariane Seeker with no truly known past lives, there was a single kindred spirit that hoped to solve all mysteries for them.  
  
One of the consequences of the woman knowing everything that the oldest race upon the continent did was that Gan had never been called the same name twice. Regardless, he had only one for the typically nameless Ariane: Tari. So far as he knew, it meant 'secretive' (unless one wanted the full Sindaran translation, which was a little too long for anyone's patience)...but where was he? He paused and tapped a fingernail to his pointed teeth, trying to figure out where the tangent had begun. Curse only having one mind!  
  
Oh yes. The day was uncommonly hot. The city was lovely, and the people were happily and sweatily milling--complaining mildly here and there, but nothing to be overly concerned with. Not only that, but the Magical Fair was in full swing, merchants, magicians, and other citizens were busily haggling over various magical items with ridiculous properties. Who needed a sword that could compact itself to fit into your pocket or a whirligig that could lift you off the ground just long enough to avoid rain puddles? Who indeed!  
  
"There he is."  
  
Gan jumped at his companion's sudden soft statement and followed the line of her long, slender finger across the square. There, sporting ostentatious robes of colorful spinifax that ironically almost blended in with the silk canopies surrounding him, stood a tall magician. The collar of his magenta cloak was so high that it almost crested the crown of his head, his dark green hair spilling elegantly around the paler shade of his sculpted face.  
  
"He's the one we're looking for?"  
  
Tari shook her head just enough for her cowl to shift with the motion.  
  
"Then why is he presently the object of our attention?"  
  
"He's the one that can help us find Sut-Ri."  
  
Gan cocked a scaly eyecrest and flicked an earlobe back over his shoulder, looking from the magician down to his companion (as his seven feet significantly towered over her five and a half) and back.  
  
" That gentleman?" he exclaimed with some level of indignation. "He's quite obviously a charlatan of the lowest ilk--Cymrilian or otherwise, and trust me, I'm being polite with this--putting on a show to impress the ignorant."  
  
The Ariane's wry smile was barely detectable but came through clearly in her tone. "Ignorant like yourself, friend, if you can't see what he's really doing."  
  
"Why, he's robbing the masses, of course. Even upon the high mesas of Sindar we get such folk."  
  
"No. These people freely pay to see the spectacle." She pointed again just a little to the magician's right. "Take a good look at the one accepting the lumens."  
  
Gan squinted into the bright sunlight as he ran a finger along the inside of the curl of cartilage that extended from his chin like a beard. The fellow he saw didn't appear to be anything special with the green coloring typical of Cymrilians, but the Sindra had to admit that his exposed flesh was an interesting chartreuse. And his chopped hair looked a little dull. This, of course, didn't mention the fact that his skin appeared a bit haggard, almost like it was in desperate need of soothing oils.  
  
"He's not perspiring," Gan stated at last, thinking that he'd finally started to figure things out.  
  
"Now, from my past experiences, I'd say he was a dabbler in the elemental or natural magicks, utilizing their unique properties to somehow alter the immediate environment about him...however, before I go and sound too much like I used to by saying far more than is needed.... He's not truly alive, is he?"  
  
Tari shook her head again, already weaving her way forward as the gathered crowd dispersed to continue with various errands. Gan stayed behind to watch--within hearing distance, of course--as the Ariane approached the magician and his strange partner while the earned coins were pocketed. The Cymrilian (Gan felt the necessity to remind himself that it was the living one not the dead-made-to-look-living one) noticed Tari almost instantly and lightly snapped his fingers. His partner bowed and walked stiffly away, the Sindra keeping an eye on him until he vanished into an alleyway.  
  
"And what is it that I can do for the lady?" the magician asked lightly, a sweet smile playing across the near-perfect lines of his mouth. Without the crowd in the way, Gan took note of an intricate pattern tattooed from above his left eyebrow down along his cheek. He made out to be quite the handsome fellow that carried himself well, and the Sindra hurriedly gulped down a tactless interjection before pretending he was busy with other things. This for no reason other than to keep himself occupied. Tari might have been young enough, but she was certainly not his daughter.  
  
 _Bloody rogue._  
  
It was the shortest thought he'd had all day.  
  
Despite its softness, Tari's voice carried well to him across the span of fifteen paces, crowd and all. It had nothing to do with acoustics, and Gan idly rubbed at his temple to quell the slight throbbing there. Even with his back turned, he could see the conversation inside his mind's eye with a slight purple tinge to it.  
  
"There's a favor I need from you, magician," Tari said rather firmly, her features save the tamar still entirely lost in shadow. "You know something of death and what comes after, don't you?"  
  
"I might." The words were stiff and terse, the man obviously a bit nervous about something being discovered. That was no wonder as necromancy was heavily frowned upon no matter where one went anymore. And a Cymrilian of all people! If a member of one of the most powerful races on the continent--both magically and politically--was adept in the 'dark arts'.... Gan gulped and quickly plopped himself upon a bench carved out of a single block of turquoise crystal, pulling out one of his many dream logs and pretending to pore over the pages.  
  
"Have you the ability to commune with a soul unused for several years with no corpse remaining?"  
  
"Madam, with all due respect, we should not be discussing such things out here in the streets...especially with me not having a clue as to whom I'm talking to." The man made a show of adjusting his high-collared cloak and long sleeves.  
  
Tari acted as if she hadn't heard him.  
  
"And could you also commune with that same soul once it has been reborn?"  
  
"Please, my shop would be a better place to talk about this. Come with me." And without bothering to know if Tari would follow him or not, the Cymrilian strode off towards the same alley that the strange fellow had.  
  
Motioning with a hand for Gan to stay where he was, Tari went after the magician. The Sindra's vision behaved almost like his two brains used to as if one eye was seeing one thing and the other something else. It used to be disorienting, but after three years of accompanying Tari, the former dual encephalon was used to it.  
  
As he read back through dreams he'd had over the past several weeks (a Zandir swashbuckler crossing swords with a Gnomekin female in good fun...hmm, curious), Tari and the magician arrived at the latter's shop, a low building of seafoam crystal ornamented with flowing patterns of gold. The windows were hung with drapes of fine orange gossamer, and delicate light-catchers hung just inside the glass to allow rainbows of dazzling color to play along the fabric. The interior made Gan wonder exactly how a street performer could do so well for himself with a tiny shop and slights of hand.  
  
His vision suddenly cleared, which nearly threw him over backward when the full force of the suns struck both his eyes instead of just one. Gan knew that Tari was still decently within range for the telepathy, so something had to have made her lose her calm. A rage hotter than the day flamed within him as he unconsciously gave in to his disease, and he picked up his belongings and practically ran to the shop, ripping through the samite covering the doorway. He expertly got himself tangled but didn't notice, pointing a vicious, gnarled finger at a figure he thought was the magician and shouted:  
  
"Cease and desist this breakage of criminality lest I shall have the treatise arrested and preside over such matters of state as require you condemning...oh dear...." During his garbled accusation, the samite slipped from where it had caught on his jagged head crest, revealing a skeleton standing before him wiping off the main counter with a rag, its animate bones held together with strips of hide that creaked with every movement. Looking about, Gan discovered there to be still another skeleton on the other side of the small room checking on items arranged on a shelf almost as if it were appraising them. With what eyes, he found himself wondering and would have continued to ponder this point had his train of thought not been interrupted.  
  
"Don't mind the help," he heard the magician's masculine voice say. "They'll return to their closet in a minute or two." The Cymrilian was sitting casually at a table just off to Gan's left, sipping bubbling aquavit from a small glass as Tari sat stiffly across from him. Her hood had been pushed back no doubt to reveal her identity, and her intense silver eyes stared uncertainly at her surroundings. Her white hair was bound up tightly behind her head in a woven net studded with amethysts. She looked every part the lady with her hands folded in her lap, but Gan couldn't waste time feeling proud. He had too many other things to think about and not as much brain as he used to have to do it with.  
  
"But," the magician continued, "as I was just telling your friend here--you two  are friends, are you not?--my name is Calindar Pordifax, renowned illusionist and expert necromancer. The latter I usually keep under wraps for sensible reasons to which I'm certain you'll agree. However, since you seem to need my help with something"--he looked to Tari--"finding a soul possibly reborn? It's difficult, but I doubt you'll find another willing to help you for some leagues."  
  
"You're capable," Tari replied without shifting her gaze from the skeletons now leaving, heading down a trapdoor behind the counter. "I've sought your help in the past, though I doubt you would remember such things having never been trained."  
  
Calindar blinked in insulted surprise. "Madam, I was trained at the Lyceum Arcanum! Well, until I got myself expelled, but that had nothing to do with my hobbies. I assure you that I know very well--"  
  
The Ariane merely shook her head and looked down at her onyx hands, sighing heavily.  
  
 _He is not like you, Donimos_ , she told Gan via telepathy.  _This is the third time I've confronted him like this in three lives, and still he does not understand the power within his soul._  
  
 _Regardless, he says he can help find Sut-Ri_ , he replied gently.  
  
 _I know. But that is only part of his mission in life as it is mine. The rest he must discover himself, for I cannot tell him._  
  
Calindar cleared his throat politely and set his glass down. He smoothed a hand through his wavy hair and did his best to get Tari's distracted gaze to meet his. He was hardly successful, but continued on anyway.  
  
"Have no fear, lady. At the very least, I could provide you with a fetish that could help lead you to this soul you seek, if it has been reborn as you suggest could be possible. However, I would be more than willing to search the Midnight Realm if need be. All I need is a name."  
  
Tari simply stared at the magician.  
  
The amusement Gan felt at Calindar’s discomfort contained a tinge of sympathy. He knew from experience how unnerving it could be to lock eyes with an Ariane. Even a fool could sense the absolute agelessness there, that here was someone who knew what it was like to be mortal and immortal all at once. But the Sindra repressed his urge to grin as Tari’s voice broke through the short but tense silence.  
  
“Souls have no names, magician, and the only name I have belonged to a being no longer part of the living.”  
  
Calindar sat up straighter and, with surprising courage, looked hard at Tari.  
  
“Madam,” he said curtly, “don’t think that I have no clue how life and what comes after function. You and I both know that the soul forever remembers all the names it has ever carried whether the current possessor is aware or not. Believe me, alive or in stasis, I will help you find the one you seek.”  
  
Tari nodded shallowly. “His last known name was Sut-Ri.”  
  
Calindar’s shaped eyebrows raised. “The one known all along the Southern Rim as Dragonmaster?”  
  
The Ariane didn’t respond.  
  
“Legends grow with time,” Gan commented, realizing that his companion had fallen into a state of deep contemplation seemingly at random, “but that would be the one.” He waved a hand in front of Tari’s face then smiled awkwardly. “She’ll be back with us in a minute, though, I admit that this is the most she’s spoken in months.”  
  
Calindar laughed freely and once more looked comfortable, lounging in his wooden chair and drinking aquavit. Gan realized that, despite the fellow’s profession, he was truly quite likable…unless it was all a magical illusion and the handsome man before him would suddenly decompose. That wouldn’t be pleasant. The prospects weren’t helped by the fact that Cymrilians frequently enhanced their appearances by magical means, and a necromancer? That just made it disturbing. And what would he tell Tari? ‘Sorry, the almost-hired necromancer crumbled into dust while you were lost in the Obelisk. I guess we have to wait around for his next incarnation.’ No, that wouldn’t do at all.  
  
“I’ve had dealings with the Ariane before,” the magician replied with a small shrug. Gan was relieved to see that he was still quite healthy. “The Seekers have learned the value of my trinkets, and I’ve taken on harder jobs than this.”  
  
“Harder than finding a transascended soul?”  
  
“When looked at from the ‘how life-threatening is it?’ perspective, yes.”  
  
“Ah, so we’re not actually discussing the level of difficulty.”  
  
Calindar shook his head.  
  
“If that  were the current subject, how would things stand?”  
  
“I’d tell you that I would require absolute patience during the period of experimentation. Now, I’ve managed similar things in the past, but Sut-Ri was a strong hero—requiring a stronger soul. To make the proper fetish will take time.”  
  
“How much time?”  
  
“I’m not certain.” It was then that Calindar peered at Gan through his dark yellow eyes, long and scrutinizing. The older humanoid stared back for a time before feeling somewhat nervous, adjusting his long robe so that it wasn't so apparent that all he wore underneath was a loincloth even though it was what he always had worn. Cymrilians could be stuffy about that kind of thing. “You know, it’s taken me a while, but I’ve just noticed that you’re awfully direct for a Sindaran.”  
  
Gan was taken aback at that but quickly recovered. After checking on Tari’s state—which was still classifiable as meditation—he responded. “That would be because I’m not exactly Sindaran anymore…in the neurological sense at least.”  
  
The magician seemed to cringe though not actually visibly. “Sindra, then? What’s known as a Demented One?”  
  
Gan nodded.  
  
“Tari has helped me greatly, however,” he said, taking on a lighter tone. “She discovered that my dreams are actually rather prophetic, and I can interpret the visions of others. Both of my brains still work. They just decide that it’s better actually working together, I suppose. Sleep takes hours out of the day, but to be honest, I’d rather dream than stay awake pursuing useless endeavors like my fellows. …Wait a minute.”  
  
He closed his eyes, then, focusing on an image that was forming there. He knew that it was Tari trying to show him something, but it was difficult to make out what. Then he saw it, and he knew what was expected of him.  
  
“Magician,” he said slowly, looking once more at the Cymrilian with a slight grin threatening to expose his teeth, “if you were to be provided with more than just a simple name and a few exaggerated legends, how long would it take you to make that fetish?”


	3. Aadur

_ "Beware the Infidel, for his ways are cunning and know no bounds." _

_ \--The Omnival _

  
Aadur stared at the shoreline as it slowly passed to starboard. There was nothing but thick and impenetrable jungle and unforgiving swamp as far inland as he dared to think about, and that was also all he had to look forward to once the ship docked within the next few days. His assigned task and only form of entertainment would be sent off to one of the numerous slave camps once ashore. After that, Aadur would lose the luxury of having someone intelligent at the receiving end of his scrutiny. "Intelligent" was too strong a suggestion as no wise person would turn from Aa's true doctrines to walk some rebel path, but it was the only thing the man could think of even remotely suitable.   
  
Aana was a strange case. Since he'd been instructed to restructure her way of thinking back to that of a proper witch hunter, Aadur had begun to question exactly how lost the woman was. At first glance and even after lengthy conversation, Aana seemed no different from any other Aamanian beyond the long black hair sprouting from her head. Every session would crescendo to a stalemate of tactics as both prisoner and inquisitor were familiar with each other's methods. Through all this, Aadur almost couldn't see what it was that he was meant to accomplish save that small things Aana would say hinted that she felt she knew something that everyone else aboard was ignorant of. It was during these moments that she would smirk ever so slightly, pride glowing from behind her brilliantly green eyes, and Aadur would sense the tinge of madness.   
  
No matter what he asked of her, however, she wouldn't give up her secret. This simply would not do.   
  
Inhaling one last breath of thick, humid air, Aadur licked the sea salt from his lips and turned away from the rail. The suns were nearing their respective zeniths, and the captain would only have more questions for him when the dinner hour arrived. Straightening his simple white robes and black lapels, he made his way down into the section of the ship that served as the brig. He stooped awkwardly so as not to hit his head off the low beams. This was always such an inconvenience but a necessary one. Cramped spaces tended to put prisoners in a more desperate state of mind. Aadur grumbled this time, however, as he jarred his shoulder in the dim light. Keeping Aana here was more a torture to him than to her.   
  
A small chuckle answered his complaint, and he gritted his teeth in response.   
  
"You should really insist that my quarters be changed." Aana's voice sounded as languid as she looked once she came into view. She lounged along the curve of the hull, an arm behind her head and the fingers of her free hand twirling about the strands of her hair. She'd been left with naught but a sleeveless tunic and short trousers of bleached linen, but she hardly seemed to notice the indecency. "Honestly, it's so much trouble for you to come down and visit. You need to tell Captain Aamarin that I should be moved aft."   
  
Aadur leered at her through the iron grate of her cell. "Were it up to me, you'd be rowing with the slaves...or, better still, scraping the hull clean of barnacles with your teeth."   
  
Aana sighed deeply and shook her head, smiling.   
  
"You don't even know where to begin, do you? So many empty threats and nothing to show for it. That's all they teach you, isn't it? The tactics of the Halls of Penance bore me, Aadur. Do think of some other way to speak with me--I might be more agreeable, then." She snuggled down into herself and acted as if she were about to fall asleep.   
  
Hands clasped tightly before him, his knuckles as white as his garb, Aadur stared stoically down at her with blazing eyes. He let out a long breath and whispered a blessed few words before flicking a hand toward the cell and holding it there. Blazing white bands formed about Aana's wrists, ankles and neck, pulling her up into the air just enough to pin her tightly against what bit of wall there was. The smug look was gone from her face as she struggled against her divine bonds, and she bit at her lower lip to not cry out as her skin burned and blistered. His prisoner in a much better position in accordance to his liking, Aadur resumed a more stately and relaxed pose. It was his turn to smile.   
  
"Now, Aana," he said casually, taking his usual seat upon a small barrel, "Do tell me how it was that you got on board. We've spent so much time beating around the bush that I feel it high time we were blunt with one another. I know and you know that you certainly didn't swim to us. Who is your ally, and why have you so cruelly turned against your own? With Aa as my witness, relent or discover exactly what tactics I've learned in the Halls of Penance."   
  
"You're as brainless as the rest of them," Aana hissed. "The day you think for yourself is the day I'll tell you anything about my intentions."   
  
Aadur willed the bonds tighter, a satisfied look coming to his face when his prisoner tried and failed to hold back a whimper.   
  
"That," he said placidly, "I did of my own volition. Now, would you kindly inform me--as we've spent days wasting time--why you dared to attack your own brethren?" He could and would reiterate forever and a day if it meant he could squeeze something out of her. He would make those bright eyes mist and tear and that full mouth blubber and weep and worse if it provided the information he desired.   
  
"Slavers are no brothers of mine," Aana snarled in return.   
  
A low chuckle escaped the inquisitor, leaving a ghost of a smile behind. "Our nation was built upon the backs of the undeserving. They serve their purposes in accordance with Aa's will, and we do our part in return. You, above all, should know this, having been personally responsible for the capture and conversion of many." The horror in her eyes broadened his smile. There was no need for flame or jagged blades to get through to this one. Her own memories were tools enough.   
  
"Let me see if I can tell it properly," he continued, opening the door to her cell that he might place a single finger in the very middle of her brow. "By the light of the All-Knowing, I shall reveal to you your sins." He paused as if to think, his eyes closed and his face passing through expressions of confusion, realization, anger and fear. Aana's breath came quick and heavy. She had a feeling that she knew what he was about, something she had only seen done once but that was always a procedure when dealing with the most dangerous traitors and infidels.   
  
"Ah...ah, yes, I see. A spoiled child while growing up, your father treating you like the first-born son he should have had. Is that it? The best schooling, the most lenient rules...and him a Monitor. Of all the shameful things. But it was well worth it, was it not? You excelled in your studies, in your use of Aa's holiest power, in your tracking and fighting--a born witch hunter, and thus you became. Such a temper...such a hot, unforgiving temper. They sent you to Aaslan in Cymril to straighten you out."   
  
"Stop it," Aana hissed, hating her life narrated so. "Just stop it--there's nothing to see."   
  
"Oh, but there is," Aadur countered, smiling almost coyly. "Aaslan was instructed to help curb your emotions, to lead you in proper meditation that you might best serve your people. He sent you on a little mission, didn't he? A small, simple task of running a message from his tower to a representative on the Council. And what happened along the way? Tell me, Aana...you know what it is I desire to hear."   
  
Aana tried to cringe away from him, from his bonds, from his cold touch, but she was well and truly trapped. Her silence seemed to irk Aadur, and a force shot through her, not painful but almost like will, if it had a feeling to associate. She suddenly could not stop herself from speaking.   
  
"There were children playing...children of all races and colors and creeds...playing so harmoniously it was like seeing a Bodorian opus." She couldn't help but smile at the memory, the simple joy of it that she only ever felt in retrospect.   
  
"And what did you do, Aana? Did you do as you should have and ignore them? Did you walk on by to fulfill your oath to your superior to better these heathens' relations to our most holy Aa?"   
  
"I stopped to watch them," she replied strongly, refusing to let him badger her any worse than he had. She hadn't spent the past several years trying to shake off Aamanian habits only to cave into them again. "I stopped to watch and relish their unity through diversity. They didn't have to look alike or act alike or even speak the same tongue to be a part of something powerful."   
  
"Fool!" Aadur spat, jerking his hand away from her head in disgust. "Their harmony is a naive attempt to reach something divine, something they cannot possibly attain without the wisdom we can give them by bringing them into Aa's omnipotence! You abandoned your god that day, and not long after that, your people. For your heresy and treason you shall be punished unless you repent--repent and return to your rightful place among us. Bring alms and mana to your father's house, your father who still serves faithfully! Abandon all earthly luxury that you might attain something greater."   
  
She could feel the power radiating from him to wash over her, a power that was too familiar. She had used it herself a good many times, too many to let herself fall victim to it. For a moment, she hung there, biting at her lip as she tried to think of what to do. Her bonds still burned her, and that strange willfulness still played in the pit of her stomach, trying to get her to say things that she had no intention of ever voicing. Aadur continued to hammer her with overly pious words, trying to tear her apart with his patronizing blather and guilt-inspiring turns of phrase. All it succeeded in doing was to turn her stomach. After a few minutes, she couldn't contain herself any longer.   
  
"Never was there a single day when I did not offer my morning prayers, my noontime chant, my evening penance. Never did I truly waver from our glorious Aa's teachings." Aana's voice gathered strength as Aadur's wavered and eventually silenced, a flabbergasted look plastered upon his angular face. "In all my wanderings, my conversions, my self-righteous mistakes, I learned something that most of us fail to see: the faults within myself. What right had I to condemn others in Aa's sight when I was half-blind? Aaman must first cleanse itself before it can even consider embracing others."   
  
Aadur sneered and tightened her bonds with a sniff. She screamed as something in her wrists cracked, and he dropped her without a second thought. The skin of her wrists, ankles and neck was blackened and smoking, but she did not immediately nurse her wounds upon release.   
  
Instead, she simply lay there, immobile but breathing hard as if trying to keep from vomiting or worse. With a white-booted foot, Aadur shoved her onto her back and pressed his knee to her chest. Her eyes widened as she gasped for breath, feebly trying to push him away.   
  
"I will not listen to the words of heretics," he spat, relishing in the particular shade of crimson that her face was turning. "Long years of being misguided have addled your brain and make you speak treason. Before we reach Jhangara, you will give up the whereabouts of your allies, and all shall be brought to justice. In the meantime, there's no point in killing you just yet." And with that, he rose, air immediately returning to Aana's deprived lungs in a ragged, gasping rush. He closed and locked the cell door once more and ducked his head low as he made his way back to the steep stairs that led to the upper decks.   
  
"And what of your sin, Aadur...son of Aacred?" Aana's voice was weak after her ordeal, but Aadur could see her crawling back to a sitting position in the dimness. She was such a stubborn soul. "Why is it that they no longer trust you in the Halls of Penance that you must serve aboard a slave galley? What of your brother? What exactly was it that happened between you and him?"   
  
The inquisitor froze in place, a sudden chill sending a quiver through all his limbs as his own tricks were turned against him--but how? A lunatic--that's what she was. Perhaps her predicament was slightly different than he'd first anticipated. He'd often read of those so blessed by Aa that they went mad with it, running away from their true calling and duty to lead lives of depravity that they might better cope. Could that moment of contact between them have so backfired?   
  
He glared back at her, cold, condescending. "By all that Aa holds true and blessed, you will forget that." Turning, he ascended to the main deck.   
  


~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

  
Aaseth led the ceremonies for the evening penance from upon the forecastle deck. Dressed in his whitest robes and holding his hands aloft, he began the chant that each member of the crew gradually joined in perfect unison. There was no harmony. There was barely a melody, and what there was existed in a morose minor key. Two braziers were lit on either side of the priest in symmetry with himself and the black iron Eye of Aa that hung from the ship's sturdy prow. Drome, the silver moon, stared down at them as if acting as Aa's watchful servant.  
  
Aadur chanted with the rest. His steady tenor was no louder than the sailor next to him, and whatever sound he produced meshed with everyone else until there was naught but one voice praising the All-Knowing, the All-Seeing, the All-Powerful Aa. For the blessed, it was a moment of clarity, a time when the Omniscient would share in his wisdom that they all might better serve him. For those like Aadur who felt that they had fallen from the esteemed grace of their peers, it was a time for atonement, when all sins were remembered and projected into the chant that the Omnipotent would weigh the deeds with the intentions, the outward appearance and the soul within.  
  
His heart still blazed with the anger the prisoner had sparked. She had used his own practices against him, of that he was now certain, but her keenness, her reaction of saying precisely what she did, was a far worse crime. To add insult to injury, she had been brought from the brig to participate in the holy rites as, she claimed, she still remained faithful. He believed her a liar despite her joining in the chant, her fervent cries of, “Aa is Omniscient,” her cowled and bowed head. She had learned in seconds the secrets he most feared. He had spent many months keeping his flaws between himself and the masters of the Halls of Penance and Aa. He had journeyed to places most would avoid for the hope of earning the mana he needed to buy back his honor. He had disavowed his twin brother to save his own skin.  
  
Guilt crept across Aadur’s skin with the clamminess of winter fog. It seeped within his flesh to grab at his heart and stomach, wrenching them into a contorted mass of emotion. He continued his chant reflexively, but his voice was losing its strength, his will its fervor. His brother’s face flashed across his mind’s eye with that boyish grin, laughing lightly at some joke long forgotten. What had it been? Something so simple, that he knew, something they had made up together from a turn of phrase an archimage had used during lessons. It had been so innocent, but each boy had interpreted it differently. To Aadur, it remained a joke. To the other, it had become a way of life.  
  
“Live freely in the light of the All-Seeing!”  
  
Aaseth’s voice cut through the song like a ray of Aa’s holiest power.  
  
“Live freely in his doctrines, and ensure that you understand. His is the way of the righteous, of the just, and it shall be the only way as is ordained by He Who Sees, He Who Governs, He Who Knows All!”  
  
Aadur stopped chanting entirely, his mouth agape and eyes wide. A flash blinded him, and he fell back, the sailors surrounding him quickly grabbing at his arms to keep him aright. The chanting stopped at the ordeal, and eyes either turned to the disoriented Aadur or to Aaseth whose look of confusion summarized what everyone else was feeling.  
  
Another flash zipped across the deck, spiraling around until it died out of its own accord. It was a white-hot flare of such intensity, and it illumined the deck with the brilliance of the Greater Sun. Only Aana, her hands firmly bound, her head still lowered, and her body the very essence of humility in the shapeless frock she’d been forced to wear, remained unmoved. Confusion was replaced by suspicion upon Aaseth’s face, and, pushing his ceremonial robes out of the way, he descended to the deck and began to work his way over to the prisoner through the crowd.  
A third flash flew past, causing the first mate to cover his face with his sleeve. It had been so close! Spots and arcs of a purple hue danced across his vision as his eyes tried to recover from the shock, but it was of no use. In his near blindness, he stumbled and grabbed a hold of the main mast until he regained focus.  
  
“Captain!” A cry went up from the crow’s nest. “Captain, a ship to port! A ship to port!”  
  
The sailors on deck scrambled into their usual positions at the report, preparing for whatever might need to be done, especially if the ship were that of an enemy. Aadur had been settled to the deck near Aaseth, and Aana was quickly dragged over and chained to a metal ring protruding from the deck. Like the mainsail, she was held securely fast.  
  
The dimness of the night did not allow for the most excellent visibility, but the light from the braziers carried far enough to reflect off the whitewashed surface of another vessel. Upon its prow was the black iron Eye of Aa, just as on the Aamanian ship. The sails were bleached by sun and salt, but the Eye was present there as well, the mainsail sporting the massive holy sigil. Aboard, figures could be seen moving about, some right along the rail staring back at the confused Aamanian sailors. They wore white garb, were dark of skin and green of eye, but locks of black hair sprung abundantly from every head.  
  
Aamarin came over to Aaseth and Aadur, the latter two having better recovered from the flash sparks and now blinking with unbelieving eyes at the neighboring ship.  
  
“What,” he breathed, aghast, “has Aa cursed us with, now?”  
  
“They appear much like the prisoner,” Aaseth responded lowly, nodding in Aana’s direction.  
  
“Aamanians the lot of them…but perhaps we misjudged? It might be that they have been too long at sea, perhaps lost or on some unfinished errand?”  
  
The captain scowled. “I have heard no such news, and I cannot ignore that this woman came aboard and attacked me personally. Until we learn the exact details, we shall proceed with caution. Am I understood?”  
  
“Completely.”  
  
Aboard the other ship, a man came into view. His skin was completely hairless, his bald head taking on a certain sheen in the moonlight. He wore the breastplate of a warrior priest, the white enamel flawless at this distance. His long-sleeved tunic beneath covered the mesh of a scale shirt, and the Eye embroidered upon his tabard was brilliant with apparent newness. He leaned upon the rail, a scrutinizing look upon his angular face, his brow furrowed, his lips almost pouting.  
  
Aamarin stepped forward that he might better address the other man, motioning for Aaseth to stay with the prisoner.  
  
“May the All-Seeing ever keep you in his sight,” he called across the gap. A mere few meters separated the ships, but the waves between were ever insistent on making their complaints heard.  
  
“And may he grant you the knowledge of the ages,” came the reply.  
  
“Brother, your crew appears unruly,” Aamarin stated, his tone more friendly than usual. “Has something happened to keep them from their rites and penance?”  
  
From behind, Aadur was having troubles seeing the other ship. It had fast pulled alongside but had no tell-tale markings to identify it. The crew unnerved him. After all, the only difference between a decent Aamanian and a Zandir cur was use of the bald nettle, to maintain the necessary sameness of appearance so glorious in Aa’s sight, and proper breeding. When he could finally see well enough to make out the faces across the way, he immediately wished he’d been born blind. Fear chilled him to his very soul, and he slowly backed away, acting as if the sparks had caused a terrible headache. The captain must be on his own to deal with this particular curiosity.  
  
“My crew is far from unruly, brother. They say their prayers and count their mana.”  
  
“But you have allowed them hair while you still obey the statutes. Such is a crime, and there are those among my crew that are qualified to discipline them if you, yourself, are unable.”  
  
Aadur shrunk into the shadows, irritated that there was no way to keep a respectable distance. Aamarin’s ship, the  Eye of Truth , was far too narrow and the decks too inconveniently placed. Going below without permission was unthinkable especially until the evening rites could be completed. He could warn the captain or he could remain silent. Neither option was favorable. The captain would surely punish him, and the other crew he had already seen. He’d seen them through Aana’s memories, and the fact that she still had not moved from her submissive stance worried him.  
  
“There is no need to punish my crew. We merely come for the wayward.”  
  
“Wayward?”  
  
“Indeed! You have a prisoner of ours that escaped. She thinks she’s on some holy crusade to rescue lost souls or some such crazed nonsense. It is necessary that she be returned.”  
  
Aamarin looked over his shoulder, a thoughtful expression relaxing his features.  
  
“Brother, we have her here, and I assure you that we have done nothing to her that you would not have done.” He gestured to Aana. “But we are on our way to Jhangara as it is and had plans to drop her off in the internment camp. Unless your plans require something more severe, I would happily bear your burden and write to the Hierophant himself to explain the change in plans.”  
  
The other man was silent for a moment, seeming to ponder the option.  
  
“Jhangara, you say.”  
  
“That is the truth, as Aa is my witness.”  
  
“My men have been long at sea, brother. Many a port has housed us and given us equal trouble. We long for nothing more than to put into Arat as soon as possible. However, I will tell you that we are under strict instruction to bring the woman directly.”  
  
“As you would have it. But I caution you, brother…you’ve already lost her once.” Aamarin gestured for two of the sailors to bring Aana forward. He once more addressed the other man.  
  
“For the log that it might be remembered: your god-name, if you will.”  
  
“Of course. I am Aadin, son of Aacred, and this is the  _Wrath of Aa_.”  
  
Aadur quickly turned his face and hoped that Aa favored him particularly this night. Of all the odds! His urge to warn the captain of deception grew, but his fear of discovery and imminent shame subdued him. There was naught he could do but pray and hope that clarity came within the next few moments.  
  
However, what happened in the next few moments was not at all what one would consider an enlightening experience. Captain Aamarin had preparations made for a prisoner transfer, and Aadin, the apparent captain of the other ship, did likewise. The two vessels were brought together with hooks and cables while a gangplank was lowered that Aana might walk across. The captains met, exchanged a few words, and a pang snagged at Aadur’s heart as his brother’s gaze fixed upon him for the briefest instant. Aamarin was trusting of this man; that much was obvious. And though Aadur could not speak ill of his own brother despite any difference of belief between them, he pitied his captain, a man who was too traditional for his own good.  
  
Aadur watched, helpless, as Aana was escorted across the gangplank by a member from each crew. Her feet touched the wood of her own deck, and she paused. It was a mere second. It was forever. Then, she turned her head so slightly...and flicked a now-unbound hand into the air. Immediately, the deck around Aadur erupted into a cacophony of color. Seemingly from the woodwork, men and women dressed in the most abhorrent garb sprung forth and began to attack the Aamarin's crew. Aadin laughed as if it were some clever jest and drew the sword from Aamarin's own belt while the captain stood completely dumbfounded.  
  
Only Aaseth had maintained his wits and let forth a spray of holy light that managed to blind a few of the attackers, causing them to shy back to try to regain their bearings.  
  
"Pirates!" he cried out as he made to prepare another volley. "In Aa's name, cleanse and purify!"  
  
Aamarin made quick use of a dagger he kept concealed in his sleeve and did what he could to keep the still-laughing Aadin at bay until he could manage to either get his own sword back or conjure something far more powerful. To be made a fool of twice upon his own ship was an embarrassment that he would not abide. It was also news that he hoped not to take with him, to the grave or otherwise. It did not take him long to realize that his particular opponent was better trained than he'd first expected. Where Aana's sword fighting had been an obvious combination of both Aamanian and Zandir tactics, Aadin had the discipline as one trained in the Theocratic Order, and the captain knew he had to choose his moves carefully. He was more the sailor than the soldier even though he'd served his term at the Mace of Aa Monastery, and all he could hope was that his sea legs were better.  
  
Aaseth continued to channel Aa's most holy vengeance, and seeing him become more and more outnumbered finally caused Aadur to return to his senses. Murmuring a quick and fervent prayer, he attempted to magnify one of his better tactics: the Radiant Cuffs used so effectively on Aana earlier that very day. Five rings of light hovered before him, and with as many flicks of his hands, he sent them speeding off in attempts to snag a few of the pirates. Wrists, ankles, necks, all were fair game, and if a target was struck, a body was jettisoned into the nearest surface.  
  
There was a scream and the sizzle of burning flesh as a young woman with brilliantly dyed hair was thrown to the deck beside him, a band of searing white about her throat. She clawed at it futilely, her legs kicking in frustration when all she managed was to injure herself even more. Calmly, Aadur stepped closer to her, kneeling to the point where he could smell the salt and sweat of her copper skin.  
  
"By the strength of the All-Powerful," he breathed, his voice a soft yet potent whisper, "you shall face your sin."  
  
He covered her face with his hand and closed his eyes. Her screams became more shrill, more panicked, as Aadur took memories and warped them, remembered pain and exaggerated it, forgotten dreams and turned them into nightmares. All within an instant. Then, he took from within his robes an iron rod the length of his forearm and, chanting in a brief, minor arpeggio, drew it along the skin of her forehead. He removed his other hand and continued to trace along the lines of her face, searing the flesh with geometric lines of horrid, black blisters. Her eyes he saved until last, and what he worked there would make the pitiful soul later thankful that she'd lost the ability to see. She still flailed about albeit more feebly, and Aadur rose, his face a mask of stone.  
  
"Such is your penance. May the grace of Aa guide you back into his Sight."  
  
The mayhem raged on, each side fighting with sword and skill, spell and prayer. Aamarin had managed to get his hands on a proper weapon, a mace from a fallen comrade, and was forcing Aadin back with the sheer weight of it. Aaseth, too, had turned to the sturdiness of cold metal to protect him, his robes stained with blood. If it belonged to him or someone else, it was impossible to tell, but he continued to fight if only by the strength of his will alone. The other crewmembers did what they could to keep the invaders at bay, but it was quickly turning out that the pirates had them all severely outnumbered.  
  
Determined to end the problem at its source, Aadur struggled to make his way across the deck, aiming for the gangplank. Aana was still on the other side, engaged with one of Aamarin's men who was apparently getting the worse of it. A ploy. It had all been a ploy, and the inquisitor was determined to give the tables a turn.  
  
There was no way to sneak across. He'd be in plain view for anyone even half paying attention. Cursing his luck, he gauged the distance between himself and his target. The Cuffs would be useless here, and he had a feeling that several other things would be as well. Aana's clothing had a particular sheen to it that Aadur recognized from his training under the archimages. Nothing meant to physically do her ill could touch her for as long as the effect lasted. However, as he gauged the situation, he noticed Aana's demeanor completely change. She stopped laughing. Her face became hard and stern, and she abruptly stopped fighting the man before her. Rather, she locked her sword with his, the blades each caught in the other's hilt, and jerked the sailor's weapon clean out of his hand.  
  
"What are you doing, brother?" she demanded, her voice containing a cold timbre that seemed quite out of sorts with her apparent personality. "The infidel seeks to overwhelm us and you stand here sparring with me? By Aa's mighty fist, remember your duties or I'll see you cast into the sea!"  
  
To Aadur's surprise, the sailor saluted the woman and came bounding in his direction, the gangplank bouncing beneath the bleached white of his boots. He leaped back into the fray shouting oaths to Aa. The inquisitor turned back to Aana, who had pulled the two swords apart and stood staring at him, a cruel smile curling her lips. The carefree woman he'd interrogated was totally gone and what was in her place was something the complete opposite.  
  
"You came for me, Inquisitor," she stated simply. "I merely enact Aa's will the same as you, as I always have. For this I am to be punished some more?" She tossed the stolen sword into the air to flip it about, catching it just below the hilt to offer it up. "If I am the heretic that you claim, at least dare to look me in the eye one last time as you kill me."  
  
Aadur felt the calm of righteousness flow into him, and he smiled. Adjusting his robes, he stepped across the gangplank quickly, catching a hold of the rail of Aana's ship with one hand and snatching the offered sword with the other. She stepped away from him slightly to allow him the courtesy of getting his feet back under him, and Aadur took the opportunity to shrug out of his ceremonial mantle. He was left in a knee-length white tunic and long trousers, which were both far easier to move about in.  
  
"Aadin says that you used to be able to best him at this," the woman said, her coyness returning. "Often, he can best me…so let's see exactly how you manage."  
  
With a sudden cry in what Aadur was horrified to realize was a trilling, warped chant, she leaped and spun at him, her sword suddenly running with blinding light. He brought his own blade up to bear, cringing from the searing heat that threatened to consume any bit of him that came near. He closed his eyes to keep from being blinded again, and pushed back with all his strength. Aana stumbled back half a pace only, but it was more than enough for Aadur to attack back with a ferocity he'd long forgotten he had. The last time he had picked up a sword was the day before his brother's examination for acceptance into the Knights of the Theocratic Order. It didn't seem to matter. Anger fueled base instincts, and nothing angered him more than this  woman who continued to defy both him and the Omnipotent.  
  
He attacked high and then low, constantly keeping himself moving to try to counteract her apparent Zandir training. He knew their style. He certainly knew that of his own people. However, the way she blended them was more confusing in scope than he could rightly conceive. She spun; she danced; she had rigid yet flamboyant maneuvers that seemed to defy the way the body was meant to move. Her frock glistened with Aa's protection as her sword of purest light left arcs of energy behind.  
  
Neither opponent seemed to be getting anywhere. Neither seemed to be able to better the other either in strategy or speed, and Aadur worried that his lack of practice might prove his undoing. He was beginning to tire and couldn't take his eyes off his adversary to see what else was going on. All he knew was that things were beginning to grow quiet. The cries of battle were replaced with the cries of the wounded, and it wouldn't be much longer before the remaining Aamanians were required to heal their fellows.  
  
If there were, in fact, any fellows left to heal.  
  
Aana came at him twice, rapidly, and her sword struck at him from an opposite side each time. He parried both with relative ease, but he'd allowed an opening. With agility he'd only ever dreamed of, she lashed out and kicked him solidly in the gut, doubling him over and knocking him back at the same time. She was on him before he could recover. She pressed her knee to his chest, her blazingly hot sword to his throat. He gagged at the feeling, at the smell of his own skin burning with Aa's mighty vengeance. She merely smiled into his wide green eyes.  
  
"By the light of the All-Knowing," she whispered, her voice coming in soft pants as she caught her breath, "I shall reveal to you your sins…Aadur, son of Aacred." And she flashed him a broader smile, the last thing he saw before she slammed the hilt of her sword into the side of his head.


	4. Calindar

_ “ Sometimes, it’s just better to leave what you don’t understand well enough alone. Barring that, make sure that you have a flawless plan of retreat.” _

_ \--Morelian Sarath, _

_ Professor Emeritus of _

_ The Order of Wizardry _

  
Physically, everything about her was sharp, from the tips of her black ears to the line of her jaw. And Calindar couldn't help but marvel at how her voice and manner completely conflicted. Anything she said was hardly above a whisper yet commanded attention while her steady, haunting gaze and aloof behavior made one want to keep his distance. She wasn't what one would call 'pretty' but the allure there was unmistakable. How the Sindra was so comfortable around her, Calindar had no idea.   
  
Gan referred to her as Tari. That had to annoy her, surely, but while souls had no names, living people more often than not did. Out of courtesy, Calindar called the Ariane by nothing else besides 'madam' or 'my lady'. She didn't seem to mind. Of course, her emotions very rarely showed either upon her face or in her voice. Apparently her years and years of meditative training had done their work a little too well.   
  
Together, the three of them had been working at the mystery that was Sut-Ri, whittling away at the legends with only silent lavender-tinged visions as a guide. To their dismay, no other Ariane aside from the last possessor of Tari's odd tamar had ever known him. After three days of little headway, Gan went to the great temple of the Magister with his books of dreams in arm. Holy men, he had explained, always dream in prophecies. The magician took that well salted and returned his focus to the task before him: a shrunken head the size of a grown man's fist.   
  
Such a forbidden art had taken him years to procure, alter to his liking, and perfect, the Chana people loath to part with any of their secrets. How he'd been successful was his own. The skin of the project at hand had belonged to an Aamanian witch hunter, taking his doctrines a little too far and getting himself lynched by an angered and drunk mob of Cymrilian radicals. Calindar had merely been there to happily clean up the mess, taking the body down from where it hung swinging before a tavern (a choice location, he had to admit) and had his undead servants--fresh ones--cart it back to his shop. That had been several weeks ago, and he was more than glad to put the well-tended flesh to good use.   
  
Treating it as a pouch, he filled the head with various herbs from all over Talislanta and finished by dropping in a single, indigo sea dragon scale.   
  
He began to chant lowly in Archaen.   
  
"Spirits of heroes past, soldiers gone, warriors lost, hear me through your shroud of death. Into this sacred vessel I summon one--the spirit of Felimas Dirche, master sea captain of the Gao, dead these three hundred years."   
  
His words after had no translation as his fingers deftly stitched up the hole where a neck was once. Turning the finished head right side up, Calindar stepped back to admire his handiwork and see if the summoning was successful.   
  
Tari came up next to him to watch as well. Her simple light blue shift that flowed along the angles and curves of her body was stained with various juices and pigments, and her hands were likewise covered in a gray powder. She had been working magic of her own, combining her skills in mysticism with the realm of natural magic. What she intended to accomplish that way was hard to deduce, but the Cymrilian knew that she was trying harder than he to find this strangely important soul.   
  
"Why a Gao?" Tari whispered as her wide eyes fixed with curiosity upon the shriveled brown head. "A Sun-Ra-San would be more efficient."   
  
"Indeed, it would be, madam," Calindar whispered back, the desire to be quiet not necessary but appealing. "However, it's easier to think of a well-traveled Gao than any Sun-Ra-San. Surely, you understand."   
  
He took her silence for acquiesce.   
  
Of course, it could have also been shock, for at that moment the shrunken head began to pulse slightly with a yellow light combined with a sulfurous smoke. The mouth and eyes, sewn tightly shut with red cording, glowed even brighter than the rest of it and even seemed to move as if desperately trying to open.   
  
"Damnedable harpy!" a thickly accented man's voice suddenly shouted. "I told her not to bother me again. Why couldn't she just...? Wait, this isn't the hut of the black witch Calma, is it?"   
  
"No, my good captain," Calindar replied in a lively tone as if this were just some conversation struck up on the street. "You are currently in the presence of myself, Calindar Pordifax renowned illusionist, and the Ariane Druas frequently called Tari. We desire your help, my lord."   
  
"'Lord' is it? Well, aren't you the amiable lad, friend Calindar. What is it that I can be doing for you?"   
  
The magician cleared his throat and picked at the cuffs of his finely embroidered sleeves. He paused just long enough to phrase his question properly so as to actually get a satisfactory response. The dead could be finicky.   
  
"In all your rovings, sir, did you ever encounter the Sun-Ra-San known as the Dragonmaster?"   
  
"I've heard tales of him well enough," the head replied. "Big fellow, he was, and bred his own type of sea dragon, I've heard. Some say that it was for his protection, others that it was for the simple pleasure of taming the fearsome beasts. Anything could be true regarding that."   
  
"This we also know," Calindar stated with a nod. "The scale I've given you comes from one such creature."   
  
There was a brief pause on the part of the head.   
  
"Ah, why so it does! Interesting curio, isn't it? I've always wanted to get my hands on some of these...even a few in a suit of dragonscale armor would up its price immensely."   
  
"Can you help us find his soul with it?" the magician pressed, trying to keep the spirit of the Gao on topic. He seemed as like to ramble as the Sindra, but that was an obstacle Calindar was willing to work around if it somehow helped the Ariane. "Every tale we know says the same, that Sut-Ri gave his life to save his created breed from the Kang. That sort of sacrifice leaves a mark."   
  
"I can certainly try, lad," the voice of Felimas Dirche said with gusto, "but I believe you know the rules as well as I."   
  
"Of course, of course," Calindar replied dismissively. "You are only able to answer three questions a day. Such a thing shouldn't be a worry."   
  
"I shouldn't think so, but it does awfully get in the way of good progress, doesn't it? Such a bother."   
  
"And one we're willing to deal with, sir."   
  
Felimas' spirit laughed heartily. "Aye, lad, aye.  You might be willing, but I'm not used to having such strict regulations placed upon my person. Lack of freedom is a terrible thing."   
  
Calindar uttered a sound of agreement and looked to the Ariane next to him to discern what she was thinking about all of this. The look on her face gave away as much as always, expressionless, stoic, but her eyes burned with something that the Cymrilian wanted to label as hostility. Knowing what he did of her people from all his travels, it wasn't difficult to figure out. Purposely, he had trapped a soul and bound it to an unliving thing. Even if it were providing them with much needed assistance, it was still pulled forcibly from the cycle of death and rebirth for an unknown period. Calindar felt that he ought to say something.   
  
"I'll release him, lady, I promise you," he whispered gently. "But for the moment, the only help we can possibly hope to receive comes from the dead. And you hired the services of a necromancer."   
  
"But how long will that be? He doesn't even have the freedom to speak when he wishes!"   
  
"On the contrary, madam," Felimas replied. "I can talk as much as I want, if you haven't noticed, but what your kind even in death does not understand is the fact that answering questions requires a certain energy. Proper questions, of course, not just common conversation."   
  
"I'll clarify," Calindar said as the Ariane turned her eyes to him. "Master Dirche here can easily answer questions that his living form knew. However, the questions we'll  need to ask soon require him to commune with other spirits and then report back to us. That takes time; it takes effort. You are willing to do such for us, sir?" The last was directed at the shrunken head.   
"You've given me a cobalt sea dragon scale, my boy. For a chance to see the creature that it came from--and to come back and tell of it if the Ariane truly know what they're about--I'd guide you through the heart of the Kang Empire."   
  
"Good," said Tari curtly. "For I fear, friend, that that's exactly where we'll end up."   
  
The woman left at that, heading up the back stairs from whence she'd come, exotic smells diffusing into the main room as testament to her continued efforts. Calindar sighed and sat in his chair at the table, plopping his chin onto his arms as the weariness of all his spell casting finally caught up with him. He stared at the shriveled brown skin before him and carefully twisted it so that its closed eyes met his.   
  
It was a decent attempt, he had to admit. The original spell required that the head belonged to the soul needed and that the death was extremely recent. But Calindar always aspired to achieve greater things, determined to be able to summon whichever soul into whichever head or receptacle he desired. He'd managed that after a good decade of trial and error, but it was still only scratching the surface of his ultimate goal. Shrunken heads were only a drop in the wine cask. Someday...someday, his skeletons would be more than just animated; he was sure of it. They would once again possess their own flesh and sinew, flow with their own blood and bellow with their own voices. To his knowledge, no necromancer had succeeded in such endeavors.   
  
Calindar would see to it that he was the one to do so.   
  
Idly, he pulled out a clean sheet of parchment and licked the nib of a stylus, scratching out a list of herbs and potions that he may or may not have tried and began plotting out various rituals. By this point, he didn't need to physically experiment to know what one thing would do with another, how various spirits would react to which sacrifice. He just knew or could make rather accurate assumptions. Regardless, he knew that whatever he needed to do would be far more complex than a single incantation or a few minutes of trance. A resurrection could easily consume days and untold amounts of his resources and energy.   
  
"Does the Ariane have any idea about this?"   
  
Calindar looked up sharply, meeting the shriveled, coarsely stitched eyes of the head containing the Gao captain. He blinked at it quizzically for a few moments before finally finding his voice, realizing that the spirit in the head could see quite well what was going on about it with or without the seemingly necessary optic organs.   
  
"Pardon?" Well, it never hurt to play coy.   
  
Fellimas' voice came slightly tinged with sarcasm. "The fact that you seem to be plotting to play the part of a god sooner or later. You necromancers always were the cunning sort."   
  
"No, and I'm glad."   
  
"Well, that's a relief. We wouldn't want to upset her further, would we? Although, she does strike me as a bit...off."   
  
"Off?" The magician sat up straighter and scowled in utter confusion.   
  
"I don't mean that she's gone a bit mad but that she seems different than other Ariane," the Gao explained thoughtfully. "I've run into a Seeker or two myself in my time--even had the pleasure of bumping into one of their master mystics when I braved an overland trip to the Maze-City. Terrible experience, that. The bloody woman prattled on and on about all that I had supposedly been in the past, but I'm shifting off what I'm meaning to say. The thing is, your friend there is up and getting herself involved in affairs that no self-respecting Ariane would ever do. They're neutral to the core, but this Sut-Ri she's after.... Once she finds him, I can assure you that there will be trouble, and trouble nothing less than war."   
  
"So there's something you're not telling us, then."   
  
"Any decent Gao has at least heard of the Sun-Ra-San, many happening upon their secret ports and allowed trade there. The Scimitar Islands be just off the Kang Empire's coast, a perfect staging point for the rebellion that they hope to one day unleash to free their enslaved kin. Sut-Ri was at the heart of the planning once, and I know the Gao that was willing to help him lead that formidable herd of blue sea dragons to the Inner Sea. The whole Southern Rim called him Three-Eyed Yrlin and for good reason."   
  
Calindar scoffed lightly and got up to fix himself an amberglass of aquavit. He seriously hoped that all this wasn't biting into his three daily questions.   
  
"'Three-Eyed'? My dear Captain, with all due respect, what creature in this entire plane of existence possesses three eyes? Or is the name some strange metaphor?"   
  
"One with an amethyst stuck in her forehead, I'd wager. And if you'd known Yrlin, there'd be no doubt in your mind where his soul up and went the day he died. Or at least went eventually."   
  
The magician took a sip of his drink and smirked at the head. "Are you going to continue to expend energy, or are you going to concede the fact that you've made your point?"   
  
"Perhaps I just like hearing the sound of my own voice, you think? Aa only knows how long I've gone without using it. …Oh, curses. I think this skin is getting to me. Why couldn't you have chosen to use that of a good and decent Gao or even a Sarista instead of this lump of refuse?"   
"Aamanians take better care of their skin than most other races. It preserves quite nicely in consequence."   
  
"I'm dead! What do I care?"   
  
"It has nothing to do with that."   
  
With a meaningful look, the magician cut off the conversation there, going back to his notes with profound concentration despite the captain's sudden urge to hum sea shanties just to see how many he could remember. It turned out to be quite the repertoire that extended almost beyond the limits of patience. Luckily, Calindar didn't truly mind the background noise and welcomed it far more easily than Gan returning beneath a cloud of irritation, three of his books of chronicled dreams clasped tightly to his withered chest.   
  
Calindar looked up from his work as the Sindra plopped down in the chair opposite him, slamming the books down on the tabletop, muttering, before completely losing his train of thought upon spying the shrunken head. He picked it up in curiosity, affixed an amberglass lens to his left eye, and squinted down at the fist-sized object.   
  
He looked the whole thing over at least three times, poking at an indentation here, scratching at stitching there before he happened to notice the agitated necromancer over the wrinkled brow.   
Gan cleared his throat nervously, the necessary squint going slack and allowing the valuable lens to drop and dangle at the end of its thin chain. He set the head down carefully in the center of the table, purposely aimed away from him.   
  
"It's an interesting little artifact," the Sindra commented with a weak smile. "Wherever did you find it?"   
  
"An Aamanian Inquisitor sold it to me for a copper last year at the fair," Calindar replied flatly. "He told me that it could lead me to the woman of my dreams."   
  
Gan's face lit up at the explanation. "Oh, that's glorious! Though, it does seem rather odd for an Aamanian...."   
  
Calindar dropped his face into his palm, forcing his skin to shift to a slightly reddish color with his mood. "By the Magister, you can be a dense one, can't you?" He turned the head around so that the stitched eyes were staring right at the bemused Sindra. "I made this myself, you dolt--just now! Seriously, can't you recognize necromancy when you see it?"   
  
"Of course, I can recognize necromancy," Gan replied in his defense, only then taking note of the parchment scrawled with small sketches and haphazard bits of Archaen. "And I can also recognize that you're as miffed as I about one thing or another, probably extending from our duties. I've interrupted you, for which I humbly apologize, but I feel that I simply must vent about my experience in that dreadful temple of yours lest I burst with the rage of it all."   
  
Calindar sighed and allowed his skin to return to its typical shade of aquamarine, raking a slender hand through his darker green hair.   
  
"It's quite all right, sir," the magician said tiredly. "It's just that, when I woke up the other day, I had no intentions of doing anything other than manning my shop and pleasing a crowd or two for the coin."   
  
"Are we not paying you well enough?" Gan's expression was caught between feelings of pity and apprehension. He quickly ruffled about in his satchel for his pouch of pentacles.   
  
Calindar waved the notion away briskly. "What you gave me as a down payment will let me live comfortably for five years, I assure you. I want for nothing. It's just that, you and Tari are providing me with a way to actually accomplish something for once besides wallow here in scorn. It's quite the shift from what I'd expected from my life."   
  
"Ah. I hope the change turns out for the good--as well it should! I'm under pretense that we go to do great things. Or at least tell someone else that he's bound to go do great things that Tari knew from somewhere else when she was someone else. It's all rather fascinating, don't you think?"   
  
It was obvious from the carefree chatter that Gan was already feeling much better from the storminess earlier, and Calindar hadn't even heard a hint of what had gone on in the temple to the Magister to inspire such animosity. He was sure he could guess, though. Priests of the source of all magic didn't prophesy in dreams or otherwise. Calindar wasn't even sure if they dreamed in the first place, or slept for that matter. Meditation could be just as rejuvenating.   
  
The one-sided conversation continued for an interminable period, Calindar half listening as he returned to his notes and calculations. Somehow, the story had shifted to an old collection of Gan’s that consisted of broken keys that he still kept around in case they came to a door that just might happen to possess the matching lock to one of them. Despite the unceasing prattle, the magician had to smile.   
  
It had been too long since he’d last had proper company.


	5. Aana

_ “ Look with both eyes, and you shall see all. Listen with both ears, and you shall hear all. Work with both hands, and you shall help all. Believe with one soul, and you shall know all.” _

_ \--The Omnival _

  
The  _Wrath of Aa_ plunged forth across the smoothness of the sea. The wind pushed at her strongly from behind, and the hull, recently cleaned of barnacles, cut through the water as if it meant nothing. Aana smiled from where she stood at the rail of the poop deck. Her ship was a carrack, a style only used by the feared Mangar Corsairs, and she’d taken it much the same way as everything else in her life: at a high price paid in full with blood.  
  
Months had been spent refurbishing the ship. There wasn’t a need to increase her speed; the carrack was already the fastest type of sailing vessel, but many elements had fallen into disrepair. The Mangar frequently would simply build or steal a ship and sail it ragged, not caring about rot or breakage. There were always other ships, and commandeering was more monetarily efficient. The carracks themselves had an upkeep due to their all-around value, but neglect still showed. Aana and her crew had had quite a rough time doing things themselves or finding the funding to pay a shipwright. In the end, however, few expenses had been quite as worth it.  
  
The suns shone brightly overhead, reflecting off the surface of the water to the point where it was impossible to make out much of the eastern horizon that wasn’t land. Jungle rushed by to port, and the cries of birds carried out across the water. Aana inhaled deeply. It had been three days since she and her crew had taken over the  _ Eye of Truth _ , and both ships were currently en route to safe haven to resupply. There was also, apparently, a bulk of precious cargo that needed somewhere to go. The battle had been costly to both sides, but Aana’s motley crew had the slight advantage of Aamanian rigidity.  
  
A full day of ceremony had been held. The fallen of Aamarin’s crew had been wrapped in old sails, still white enough to be useful to the purpose, and dropped overboard. Chanting had accompanied quotations from the Omnival as the Aamanians in Aana’s crew had, likewise, been buried at sea. The Zandir women aboard had cried and shrieked and tore at their hair and clothes when their own dead were brought forward. The men had stamped their feet and sang in chaotic harmony before listing off a plethora of saints that would guide the departed souls. Afterward, the prisoners were forced to walk the gauntlet, shackled into the cramped holding cells, and the booty was divided.  
  
Everything divided, that is, save the strange woman.  
  
She’d been treated badly—that much was certain—and Aana had spent a good deal of time and energy forcing wounds to heal. She was of a sort that no one aboard had ever seen before, and many worried that she wasn’t even suited to live out of the water. Her lean body was covered from finned head to webbed toe with silver scales. Her mouth was full of sharp teeth, and her fingers ended in strange claws that weren’t terribly long but clearly useful nonetheless. Her eyes were the same blue-green as the ocean when they were open, which wasn’t often, and anything she managed to murmur was in a trilling, incomprehensible language.  
  
Aana took this particular morning, this third morning, as a good omen. Three was considered a number of fortune amongst the Zandir, and with the pleasantness of the weather, it bolstered her confidence in the care of the mysterious living cargo. Smiling with the joy these simple pleasures provided, the woman headed below decks to see to her charge. She and her Aamanian crewmates took turns seeing to wounds all around, but only Aana and Aadin were permitted to go near the new arrival until anything could be discovered about her.  
  
She was housed in the only room available for guest quarters, which was located beneath the forward deck just before the prow. Her body barely fit upon the low bunk, but Aana and Aadin both tried to keep her in a fetal position to prevent as much cramping as possible. The only light came from a lantern hanging in the middle of the ceiling, precarious if one didn’t already know to look for it. Otherwise, a bump on the head was certain. The room was certainly not large enough for anyone of the scaled woman’s stature, but there was no other option.  
  
Aana ducked her way in and sat upon the bunk along the opposing wall and gave her charge still another analytical glance. Thus far, she’d healed up nicely. Aa had permitted the act even to the point where no scarring could be seen and that the scales had an opulent sheen akin to mother-of-pearl. The fin that crested her head had grown back from tatters and had a slightly lavender hue. She breathed more easily, and Aana was confident that things would continue to improve.  
  
She began to chant softly, her voice raising a lilting, monosyllabic prayer to Aa. She always added her own flair to things such as this, insistent that even the Omniscient liked variation now and again. This theory was only cemented by the favor he’d bestowed upon the crew of the  Wrath , even though only a handful of them were ‘his people.’ The alterations also only seemed to help things more, Aana noticed. There was a certain potency that the prayers had lacked before, a new power behind the ever-useful oratory. It fueled her belief that even Aa, himself, was disappointed in Aaman as a whole, that he wanted his people to end their megalomaniacal corruption.  
  
As she sang, the scaled woman began to stir. A single intake of breath that was a little deeper than the others, and a clawed hand came to rest over her eyes. She tried to stretch but paused when it turned out to be a useless attempt. Her hand flew from her eyes as she tried to see what was going on with her surroundings, but one thing led to another. Her wrist jarred against the wall with a dull thud, her head into the bunk above. She quickly tried to rise in her alarmed confusion and hit her temple against the lantern and just after that, her crown off the ceiling.  
  
Aana knew better than to move. However, she certainly allowed herself a sympathetic expression that was meshed with a bit of embarrassment.  
  
“ _ Sath fer-sen na dinal! _ ” the woman cried, slamming the base of her palm into the wall in her frustration. There was the distinct crack of wood. “ _ Nishi Aaman-eni-pesso! Nishi San-Ret! _ ”  
  
Aana was quite certain that she’d heard at least one word she recognized, but given the scaled woman’s temperament, she was extremely hesitant to draw any attention to herself without proper precautions. It was already a difficulty that the language was totally unfamiliar. Aana knew of one immediate option that would, hopefully, not betray her ethnicity. However, her clothing certainly wasn’t going to help matters to any remote degree.  
  
“Calm yourself, friend,” she said gently, applying her fluency in the Sea Nomad dialect. “I apologize on the closeness of your quarters, but there was nowhere else to keep you as you healed.”  
  
The scaled woman looked at her, a startled expression on her robustly angled face. She very quickly turned that look into a glare as she noticed the stark white of Aana’s garb, complete with an embroidered Eye of Aa upon her chest.  
  
“You inflict pain upon me,  _ Aaman-eni-pesso! _ ” she growled in heavily accented Nomad, curling her hands as if to simulate throttling Aana by the neck. “May the dragons sink your ship!”  
  
“Aamanian I might be,” Aana said calmly, falling back on her long years of tutelage under the archmages to avoid a verbal misstep, “but I can assure you that my crew and I are not the same as those that did you harm. That had been Captain Aamarin…and we have him and any subservient to him locked below decks.” Aana had to stop herself there. As entertaining as it would be to try to direct this woman’s anger and then set her loose upon the captives, it would accomplish nothing.  
  
“Tricks of mind!” the scaled woman exclaimed. “I will not listen.”  
  
Maybe setting her loose in the brig would actually do more good than harm. Aana could think of no other way to convince her guest that she meant no ill with the current circumstances, for even though the Zandir of the crew wore their typical vibrant, miss-matched colors, they came from the same ethnic stock as the Aamanians. Clothing was an easy thing to change, and this woman was no fool despite her exotic nature.  
  
“Perhaps you would care to see for yourself?” Aana slowly got to her feet and unbuckled the long sword from her waist. The scaled woman recoiled as if preparing to return attack, but instead of drawing forth the weapon, Aana handed it over, sheath and all. “A sign of good faith,” she said simply, waiting for the other woman to take it. “I shall walk in front, unarmed, and you follow with my own sword. Should anyone try to attack you, feel free to kill them at your leisure.”  
  
The woman’s expression was still dark and impassable, but she slowly reached out and took the proffered weapon.  
  
“I kill  you if you lie,  Aaman-eni .”  
  
Aana smiled slightly. “Such would be a fitting end, but I really don’t see the need. And, if you please, my name is Aana.” She folded her hands before her and bowed slightly. In Aaman, the action would be considered submissive. To this stranger…who knew? “I am captain of this ship, which we call the  _ Wrath of Aa _ .”  
  
“San-Ret,” the other replied simply. “Hunter of dragons. Take me to my enemy that I may kill him.”  
  
Aana’s smile grew. If they could earn this woman’s trust, this San-Ret, she could prove to be of the most valuable allies. Gesturing that the other follow, Aana made her way out the door and along the narrow passage that led to the galley.  
  
Members of the crew sat at long, low tables, eating their fill and carousing gaily, joking at how the departed must certainly be enjoying themselves in the Time After. When they saw San-Ret following behind Aana, silence hit like a meaty fist to the face. Most of them hadn’t seen the woman properly before, but they all admitted to themselves that any rumors paled in comparison to the living truth. San-Ret’s scales glistened in the lamplight of the below-decks, and even though she had to crouch to fit through the low space, she was still an intimidating figure. When they were past, low murmurs started up that built into a wave of excitement. Whatever happened today, it would certainly be entertaining.  
  
The brig was in the very bowels of the ship, sunk below the waterline where every sound was muffled by constant thunder. Aana reached for the lantern that was hung at the foot of the steps that they still might be able to see. She purposely kept no other light source here. To balance out their overabundance of ‘enlightenment’, the Aamanian prisoners deserved to spend a little time in the dark.  
  
Aana led San-Ret between rows of barrels and crates, haphazard piles of miscellany, and large iron-barred pens housing a handful of equs. The maned, scaly creatures looked up languidly as the light floated past, snorted, and went back to lounging away the time. There was little for such creatures aboard ship, but their presence was still useful to guard what lay beyond.  
  
A low door was built into the far wall, separating the cargo hold from a small space just before the rudder. A large padlock hung from a rusted latch that glowed with enigmatic symbols etched along its circular edge. Aana touched them in a precise order and whispered the command word. There was no particular need for secrecy. She couldn’t detect the slightest tinge of magic from the newcomer, and the reaction of the lock to Aana’s adept touch even inspired an odd cringe.  
 _  
__What would they want with you?_ She pondered this to herself as she worked at getting the door open. Humidity never failed to leave it stuck tight, the wood swollen with moisture and salt. She pulled with all her might, bracing herself against the wooden planking of the floor as she tugged and tugged at the grimy iron ring. With a tooth-clenching grinding the door eventually, grudgingly swung open, and Aana led the way inside with the light ahead of her.  
  
Groans came from all around as eyes tried to adjust to the sudden brightness. With a devious grin cutting across her face, Aana turned a knob at the base of the lantern. There was a tiny squeak, and, suddenly, the light focused into a single, blinding beam. She flashed this from face to face, the groans becoming grunts of irritation as eyes squeezed shut and faces still bloodied from fighting jerked away. She turned the knob again, and the beam began to flash quickly, brightly, and with a dizzying array of colors.  
  
“Captain Aamarin!” she called out, her voice nearly gobbled up by the droning of the ocean beyond the walls of the hull.  
  
A head lifted from where it hung, weary, between two upraised arms. Hands were locked into tight-fitting shackles hung so high that he couldn’t sit, couldn’t kneel, and his feet were tied together in such a way that standing, also, was inconceivable. He fixed his fiery green eyes rimmed with a weary red upon Aana, his expression grim.  
  
“Aamarin am I but captain no longer, it would seem,” he mumbled, his voice gravelly with thirst and lack of proper rest. “Ask what you will of me and go, for you have interrupted my prayers.”  
  
Aana turned the knob so that the lantern was back to normal and hung it upon a hook in the wall. “How properly pious, but I’m afraid that the All-Powerful isn’t paying proper attention. If you’re praying for your rescue, you’ll find none where we’re going. If you’re praying that I suddenly meet my end…well, Death will have to be introduced to my companion, first.” She gestured to San-Ret. “Speaking of which, have the two of you been introduced, yourselves? I’m thinking such. At least she knows of our dearest Aadur, for his mark was all over her.”  
  
“You set her free?” Aamarin exclaimed, his face and voice suddenly containing such energy that Aana was almost taken totally aback. “Foolish woman, it will be death to us all—even the slime of your own crew!”  
  
“She hasn’t touched my crew,” Aana replied. “Nor will she while I live.” She turned to San-Ret, crossing her arms over her chest and allowing her face to reflect the irritation she felt. Slipping back into the tongue she knew the other could understand, she said, “These are the men that hurt you, San-Ret, hunter of dragons. We took their ship and freed you. Now, they say you mean to kill us all. I don’t at all doubt you capable of such, but I would appreciate if you gave your rescuers a small chance to at least get away.”  
  
San-Ret looked from Aamarin and his crew to Aana and back again. Her sinewy hand clamped tighter about the hilt of her borrowed long sword, but when her sea-blue eyes returned to Aana, they were devoid of the anger that had been there earlier. Instead, there was a certain determination, a stoic resolve, and she shook her head.  
  
“ Aaman-eni …Aa-na, you give me trust. I reward that with trust.” She looked back to the prisoners. “They gave me pain…I reward with pain. But vengeance blinds me yet, and I must only deal just punishment.”  
  
“Minutes ago, you wanted them dead.”  
  
“Minutes ago, you spoke only words, and I felt the wrath of sea demons. Now, I see you are honest, for these  _ Aaman-eni _ are my enemy. But, there be no honor in killing something not free.” She gave Aana a meaningful look. Her Sea Nomad was sluggish but better now that she wasn’t so overwhelmed with emotion. “I must think.”  
  
San-Ret kept the sword ready as she walked around the prisoners. The space was cramped, but only six Aamanians had been taken alive. Aana also had seen to it that Aadur had been placed elsewhere. She and Aadin had special plans for him. The scaled woman didn’t seem to notice his absence or even care. The men before her were sufficient for her intentions whatever they turned out to be. She’d reach up and test the chains, shaking them with such force that the man bound would wince as he was jostled. She grabbed at their faces and examined them, prodding at wounds with her claws, often with the intent to reopen them. When she reached Aamarin, she merely stared at him.  
  
“I will decide later,” she said, her gaze returning to Aana, and she came back over to the doorway. “It will take much contemplation and knowledge of their actual intentions.”  
  
Aana cocked an eyebrow. “I can tell you that they either meant to kill you or enslave you. They were en route to Jhangara.”  
  
“I know not that place.”  
  
“I’ll explain later.” Aana reached up and grabbed the lantern again. “As for the rest of you,” she said in cheerful High Talislan, the preferred dialect of the Aamanians, “I’ll have to see what’s leftover following supper…unless, of course, the Omniscient wishes that you continue fasting. I understand that it often provides clarity.” She winked at the lot of them and ushered San-Ret out, shoving the door closed in their wake. As she refastened the lock, she looked to her companion curiously.  
  
“Why such leniency?” she asked. “They want you dead or enslaved—that’s what Jhangara means. It’s inhospitable jungle where they have several internment camps for those they view as heretics and infidels. You don’t want to go there. Ever.”  
  
“The solution I ponder,” San-Ret began, “is whether they shall feed the sea demons or be punished by my own hand.”  
  
“We’ve already had them walk the gauntlet, if that’s of any help to you.”  
  
“The gauntlet?”  
  
Aana began to lead the way back to the upper decks. “It’s a form of punishment I picked up from the Gao. Those to be punished are bound at the wrists and forced to walk between two rows of the crew. Most of the time, they only get flogged. We like to be a bit more creative with severe offenders.” She left it there. To get into details, now, could potentially only cause more problems, and she couldn’t afford those. They had enough explaining to do to the King of Thieves when they got back to Gao-Din.  
  
“We’ll have to keep you in the guest quarters,” Aana said to avoid any awkward silence. “I know it’s a bit cramped, but it’s all we have. It also allows for substantially more privacy as I can guarantee the crew will be gawking as if born without eyelids.”  
  
“The crew is  _ Aaman-eni _ ?”  
  
“A small portion. Most are Zandir or Gao, and none of us are like the men back there.” She jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder in emphasis. “They will torture and kill any who don’t think like them. The Aamanians that follow me…walk a very different path.”  
  
“Explain. This region is unknown to my kind.” San-Ret had chosen to put the sword away, holding it sheathed by her side as she followed close behind Aana.  
  
“Aamanians, in general, are closed-minded, corrupt fools. They only acknowledge their own truths and go out of their way to be a nuisance to everyone else they encounter, constantly trying to convert the ignorant to their fanatical views on life and religion.”  
  
She glanced back at her companion, the other woman still looking mildly lost. “Perhaps if I put it into more familiar terms, it would help. You are a hunter. When I still lived in Aaman, so was I. You hunt dragons. I hunted people: infidels, the non-believers, anyone that rejected Aamanian cultural supremacy, basically. If I saw magic, I tracked down the magician and usually tortured him to death…simple as that. It was my duty to my people and what I was born and raised to do.”  
  
They emerged upon the main deck, and Aana gestured for San-Ret to continue to follow her into the officers’ cabin. The door was low and the ceiling barely better, but both women comfortably collapsed into two chairs carved from a black wood and painted in no fewer than twelve different colors with no particular pattern. Aana poured water into a metal tankard and handed it to San-Ret who took it and quickly drained it. She then helped herself to more.  
  
“There was a chain of events that caused my path to stray…I won’t bother to bore you with the details. Regardless, I was punished, which why I  _ know _ that you don’t want to ever end up in Jhangara. A few of my fellow prisoners and myself managed to get out of the internment camp, fighting our way through miles of the most atrocious patch of hell any god could create…and have been fighting ever since. Aaman doesn’t want us back, but they don’t hesitate to try to kill us once we’re recognized. Honestly, it’s a blessing.”  
  
“To be hunted by oppressors is not a blessing,” San-Ret retorted, finally drinking water at a more healthy speed. “The Kang are ever searching for my people, and our fate is always much worse than jungle if we are caught.”  
  
Aana’s eyebrow perked. “You are from that far east?”  
  
San-Ret nodded. “I had come with two other warriors to seek aid from your King of Thieves, but your  _ Aaman-eni _ prisoners waylaid us. My brothers suffered worse than me.” Rather than the expected grief, the familiar anger flared in her eyes.  
  
“Seek aid from Gao-Din? None in my crew have seen anything like you, and we’ve gone deep into Mangar waters chasing Imrian slime. The King will take advantage of that…bargaining will not be easy.”  
  
“I do not come to bargain. I come to wait.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“For  _ Su-Rasenna-ma-neron-Lenithi _ …” at Aana’s blank stare, she clarified, “He Who Sailed beneath the Western Sun…close to that. Our seers dreamed of a moonfish guarded by blue sea dragons. We have long awaited such a sign that we might free our brothers and cousins from the Kang.”  
  
Aana tapped a slender finger on the arm of her chair, still mildly perplexed. Dealing with prophecy had never been her forte, especially when her experience with such was grounded in bigotry and ignorance. San-Ret’s purpose in being this far west was already beginning to sound like her sacrifice at the hands of Aamanian sailors was in vain. There was no magic strong enough, no army great enough, to even spit at the gates to the Kang Empire. Finding this  _ Su-Rasenna-ma-Aa-only-knows-What _ was probably the only shred of hope San-Ret’s people had left.  
  
Hope was a strong enough shield. It made a ridiculously pitiful sword.


	6. Obo

“ _Blessed is Terra, our Mother, our Keeper. Nothing is greater than She._ ”

\--Gnomekin Hymn to the Earth

 

    The wagon train moved slowly along the Highway. Rubble from a recent cave-in had yet to be completely cleared away, but the shipment was too important to be delayed until then. The Queen had said that the Cymrilian king desired a great amount of crystal for a public project for the good of all the Seven Kingdoms, but no one could see how it was so important that several equi go lame. And all the tiny Gnomekin could do in response to such occurrences was to make sure they ran out of the way in a timely fashion so as not to be crushed beneath the scaly weight.

    Obo Orabio walked near the front amongst the elite Protectors. They had been sent by the King to act as guides and defense against possible subterranoid ambush that was always a common threat outside the city of Durne. Obo’s knowledge of the underground passages and skill with the crystalblade had marked her as the first choice, picked directly from the Gnomekin Queen’s personal protectorate council. The King had moved to object, at first, but his wife insisted that there would be none better to see such precious cargo to the surface than one who personally kept Durne’s most beloved mother safe.

    She ordered a break around the time of nightfall, the Cymrilian merchants along for the trip taking on that wearied look that only comes from want of sleep after a full day. They broke camp in a large, well-watered cavern that was illumined by thousands upon thousands of glowing fungi, a myriad colors playing along the nature-hewn walls.

    “They should have agreed to the durge,” Enu Eblana commented lowly as he set to making a mushroom stew. The Protectors had all gathered together for the evening meal while two Cymrilian swordmages took the first watch.

    Obo brushed a loose forelock back into the crest of hair it had escaped from. Her expression was solemn and green eyes alert as she gazed from one cluster of colorful Cymrilians to the next. Their carts and wagons were laden with crystals hand-picked by the best Gnomekin crystalomancers, and it was a load any half-grown equs could manage under normal circumstances. But these weren’t normal circumstances for equi. Those creatures belonged above ground, not deep within Terra’s bosom. Between that and the cave-in debris, even Obo was surprised the Cymrilians hadn’t agreed to the durge to transport their goods. They very well could have been back in Cymril by now.

    “Any sign of subterranoids?” she asked the others.

    Obo’s brother, Ora, shook his head. “Not a trace. They might have had something to do with the cave-in, but that was too long ago for them to be a threat, now.”

    “The alternate route is clear?”

    “For at least the next five miles, and the geology is stable,” Enu spoke up again as he dished out the stew. “Checked.”

    “We can reconnect to the main road to the city from there?”

    Enu nodded. He was an engineer and geomancer on top of being a Protector, and the lines of his face spoke of years and years of invaluable experience. His armor was not the newest, but it was sturdy, stronger than his bones, as strong as the stone around them. At the same time, it let him be nimble and easily climb over or under whatever he needed to. Obo was convinced that was the real reason he refused to accept a new set of armor supplied by the smiths.

    Ora fished about in a pack that sat on the ground beside him. He pulled out a handful of small pouches and passed them around to his companions. Each Protector checked the contents, fitting first one amber eyecusp and then the other, blinking, and then putting them back in the pouches.

    “We will need them soon,” Ora said. “Our route will take us through the Gash.”

    The female Gnomekin made a face as her head snapped back over to where the equi stood corralled together. The Gash was a great crevasse in the earth, a wound in an ancient and weathered mountain. From above, it was a dangerous tumble deep into Terra’s bosom. From below, it was the longest stretch of daylight (and sometimes inconveniently foul weather) the Underground Highway experienced. It was also an area known for rockfalls and mudslides. None of that had been major in recent years, but it had also never been tested against a caravan drawn by equi.

    “They should have agreed to the durge,” Obo acquiesced, shaking her head.

 

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~

 

    The Gash was blinding when they reached it. The Gnomekin equipped themselves with their eyecusps and moved blinkingly forward, squinting just slightly as their large eyes accustomed to the dimness of tunnel and cavern adjusted. Their Cymrilian companions praised the change, all of them glad to see the light of the two suns shining down upon them for the first time since their journey belowground.

    The road here was not so bad as Obo had feared. Smaller rocks and patches of fallen soil littered the paved route, but it was nothing that would have twisted an ankle. Regardless, the equi were led cautiously forward by their thoughtful, diminutive handlers. The Highway followed beneath the Gash for a full mile before turning due south and up a steady incline. Enu led the way forward, holding his crystal lantern high once they stepped back into the darkness of the tunnel.

    “I say, have we much further to go?” one of the Cymrilian merchants piped up. His was a round, smiling face illusioned to be of indigo hue with eyes a startling golden color. “I would hate to miss the whole of the Magical Fair.”

    “Not far,” Enu returned, pointing the way forward. “Two miles will see us to Station Seven.”

    “Marvelous,” the Cymrilian replied, his smile even broader as he leaned back in the seat of his cart. He had long passed the reins off to Ora for guidance and seemed to be taking the opportunity to bask in what leisure he felt due him. “A quick bite and off again. I really must get back in time to catch Syrilla before she sells off all her special honey pastries.”

    “Not again, Gaberon.” The testy groan came from a swordmage walking near to Obo. He kept control of his own equs with one hand while the other rested upon the pommel of his fine long sword traced with silver filigree. “The lady has already said she will not have you.”

    “Nonsense! I am Gaberon Saranis, artisan aeromancer, and I am more than worthy of her.”

    “You’re a pompous fool,” the swordmage said under his breath. It was not so low, however, for Obo’s keen ears to miss it. While Gaberon continued to extol his own merits and how those aligned with Syrilla’s virtues, the Gnomekin turned her head to regard the swordmage.

    He kept his skin the same pale green that he was born with, his hair likewise. The only thing he bothered to make different were his eyes. They were the same gleaming brightness as his silver sword. His clothing was similar: a white silk shirt covered in a long vest of shimmering gray brocade. His trousers were only a slightly darker hue, just light enough to not blend in with the stone about them as his boots were a black and shining as onyx. Where most Cymrilians revelled in color, this one seemed to appreciate the subtle nuances of monochrome.

    “This Syrilla is a good cook?” Obo asked innocently, attempting to strike up conversation and wipe the sullen scowl from her companion’s face.

    The swordmage’s eyes darted over to meet hers. “Quite, but the more important fact is that she is young enough to be Gaberon’s daughter. Besides that, the lady to be already spoken for, but our friend here refuses to listen to reason.”

    “So she will marry another.”

    “Soon and gladly.”

    “Then why does Gaberon refuse to see?”

    The Cymrilian’s eyes narrowed. “Syrilla is my cousin. Gaberon thinks I might be able to convince her.”

    “Oh. Sorry.”

    Obo quickly directed her eyes back to the road before them. The way was now adequately lit by crystal lamps positioned at intervals along the tunnel walls, and the paved area they walked upon gradually became wider with every yard they moved forward. They would presently arrive at Station Seven where they could rest and water the equi, and Gaberon Saranus, artisan aeromancer, could brag and boast to ears more willing to listen.

    “There’s no reason for you to apologize,” the swordmage’s voice came more gently. When Obo looked back, he smiled his own warm smile. “But I’m afraid that you and I are stuck keeping an eye on him until the Wizard King releases us. I’m Vorn Nostros.”

    “Obo Orabio.”

    “A pleasure, Protector Obo.”

    “And likewise, Vorn Nostros...um, master swordmage?”

    “Just Vorn,” he replied with a laugh. “I am no master at my craft. Were I such, I would be sailing the skies in a windship off to trade with the desert peoples beyond Kasmir, keeping our people safe as they conducted business.”

    He was polite without a hint of the usual Cymrilian pride, that inflated sense of accomplishment that all of that race seemed to possess whether they intended it or not. Certainly, they weren’t quite all to the insufferable level of Gaberon, but neither had any Gnomekin known a truly humble Cymrilian since the founding of the Seven Kingdoms. Such humility was as confusing as it was refreshing.

    “But it is understood that this shipment is of great significance. It’s an honor to be chosen to guard it.”

    The smile never faded from peridot lips despite taking on more of a wan twist. “If the Wizard King had any faith in my abilities, he would not have insisted upon you and your fellow Protectors. A single one of your crystalomancers would have been enough--and only for erecting the monument.”

    “The Gnome-King would have sent us anyway.”

    “As a matter of courtesy, not necessity.”

    Obo took the opportunity to stop pressing the matter. She had no desire to upset her companion, and neither did she care much to dive into the realm of politics. Vorn believed that his purpose here was more ceremonial than practical. Surely, it was not so, but the Gnomekin found herself in no position to judge. Despite her own prowess and reason for being here, she found herself feeling equally superfluous. There had been no subeterranoids or even satada to fight off. Her skills at geomancy were minimal, not enough to be of use to Enu when he had at first thought they might clear the cave-in away. If Obo could not use her blade or her sling, her only use was another pair of eyes and guiding hand to keep the equi from any misstep.

    “Sorry,” she said again.

    “Whatever for?”

    “Sorry that this journey isn’t giving you an opportunity to prove yourself. You’re capable. It’s obvious.” She gestured a hand to his sword, which, though covered in unnecessary decoration, was far more plain than most. His clothing was practical, and his bearing straight  and square. She knew the look of a warrior that took himself seriously, even if half of his arsenal was arcane in nature. “One can hope that you earn your place on a windship someday.” Obo’s green eyes flicked briefly back over to Gaberon. “A windship flying to the dangerous lands far to the east carrying a patron worth his mettle and able to sense instinctively when a deal has gone sour.”

    Vorn’s smile became warm again.

    “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but the one who would hire me for such a journey would have to be very desperate, indeed.”

    A bend in the tunnel brought them to a brightly lit stretch of avenue with sunlight reflecting off the smooth surface. Just ahead opened the vast open space of Station Seven, a structure of curved crystal windows held together by beams of wrought red iron. The road spread even wider and became more of a plaza. A few buildings rose up from the ground on either side, but the majority of the space was taken up by tables and booths covered in fabulous spreads of fresh produce, flowers, and other sundry. The famous Station Seven farmer’s market, though a regular thing on its own, was taking full advantage of the fact that the Magical Fair was still going on. Overflow from the the city of Cymril proper had no trouble traveling a meager quarter-mile if it meant tasting even a single morsel of what grew in the fertile lands of the heart of the Seven Kingdoms.

    The caravan stopped at the Skylight Inn to water the equi. Most of the Cymrilians vanished within to guarantee that they had a taste of their own preferred food and drink rather than be subjected to Gnomekin fare. No matter how good the flavor, there was always something unsavory in the concept of eating strictly tubers and mushrooms and other types of fungus.

    “I think it’s really the word ‘fungus’ that gets them,” Vorn said as he more than happily joined the Protectors at table. “They forget in the loftiness of crystal towers that even Cymril is not so far removed from the earth.”

    “Those crystals were born in the earth,” Enu grunted as he poured small cups of mushroom ale to be passed around.

    “Precisely. But try telling that to a mage who has been long subjected to the glamor of the suns feeding those crystals their light, watching the colors dance and veins sparkle like imperfections that make the whole all the more perfect.”

    A purring chuckle came from Obo’s right where Ina Udano, grandmaster crystalomancer and one of the Daughters of Terra, sat. The woman had kept herself well out of sight until Station Seven, riding in the covered wagon with the crystals she had been charged to mold into a symbol of the continued unification of the Seven Kingdoms. What that symbol was had yet to be revealed. If the priestess knew, she kept the Wizard King’s plans to herself.

    “You sound like one of our own,” Ina’s soft voice said as her wizened face smiled up at Vorn. “Despite what one might think, there aren’t many Cymrilians that have such views regarding crystal--even as it comprises much of their city.”

    “Quite the contrary,” Vorn replied with a nod of respect. “You would hear the same words come from my father, and all of his brothers, several members of my mother’s family, and likely the Wizard King himself.”

    “But would they come from the mouth of an artisan aeromancer?” Obo put in with a pointed look. “Would any other swordmage have similar sentiments? Would a family housed in an entire palace of crystal appreciate such detail or be inured because it is all they see?”

    Ina held up a wrinkled, nut brown hand to calm the young Protector.

    “We are not here to debate philosophy, child. Our friend was making a pleasant observation, and it was a delight to hear.”

    “But Obo has a point,” Vorn spoke up after trying a swig of mushroom ale. He licked at his lips and stared quizzically at the cup in his hand while he measured his opinion. He must have found it favorable, for he took another drink before continuing to speak. “It’s difficult to get an honest opinion from most Cyrmilians because they are too busy seeing the grandeur of the whole. My father thinks it’s a result of the overthrow of the Tanasians where we reached out for and clung to the drastically opposite view. They see the variance in color, the dizzying play of sunlight upon spire, the magnitude of accomplishment such freedom has introduced to Cymril. They want to see only the perfection that comes from such a renaissance. But could they tell you that imperfection plays just as much a role in that? The Tanasians did not want to see any fault in what they had, either. Cymril should be proud of its diversity and harmony, but there is never harm in acknowledging the flaws.”

    Ina nodded sagely. “Identifying, acknowledging, these things of course. But seeing beauty and purpose in such a flaw takes a significantly moderate mindset.”

    “Not everything flawed has beauty and purpose,” Vorn objected, “but we shouldn’t downplay or ignore them, either.”

    “Would the veined crystal do better as something less prominent?” Obo kept her voice sounding more innocent than the question actually was. She had realized very quickly that this was merely a continuation of their earlier discussion, but there was no need to make the priestess so aware.

    “No. It is part of a greater whole and deserves to be viewed as such.” He pointed upward at the colorful crystal mosaic patterned into the ceiling. “The red tiles--do you see them?”

    “Rubiate,” Ina answered, “a versatile and sturdy crystal.”

    “But not uniform.”

    She shook her head. “It is often veined with umberate or common stone, both of which could weaken or enhance the structure depending on how it is cut and shaped.” And then Ina smiled a kind and motherly smile, reaching out her tiny hand to gently squeeze Vorn’s fingers. “And so it is with men. Don’t worry, Vorn Nostros. Your people will see the beauty in your flaws. The light is merely waiting to shine through.”


End file.
